"People are dying now from poisoned water, extreme malnutrition, hunger. The dying has started," the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler said, basing his claim on aid agency estimates.

He told journalists that US and British forces, as well as the Iraqi regime, were violating international rules governing food and water distribution.

Coalition forces were in "clear violation" of the Geneva Conventions after water supplies were cut in southern Basra, Hay Al-Bakr and Fallujah following air raids, he said.

Ziegler warned that although US and British occupying forces must ensure the well-being of civilians, food distribution by uniformed combatants violated rules laid down by the UN General Assembly in 1991.

British and US troops have been distributing some food and water in southern Iraq.

"It is a clear breach of international humanitarian law," Ziegler insisted.

There was also evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime was distributing emergency food stocks from the UN's oil-for-food programme only to members of the ruling Baath party, Ziegler added.

The former Swiss parliamentarian was due on Friday to present his assessment on the food situation in Iraq to the UN Human Rights Commission, which is holding its annual session here.

"The report is very critical for the coalition armies, but also we have information that the Iraqi government is not behaving in conformity with the Geneva Conventions," he said.

Iraqi civilians urgently needed access to food after having their lifeline from the oil-for-food programme cut off by the US-led invasion, Ziegler added.

Those deliveries propped up about 60 percent of Iraq's population before the war according to the United Nations.

The UN expert estimated there were still three weeks of stocks inside Iraq, with more food outside the country waiting to be delivered by aid agencies.

"In Safwan there was a distribution by combat troops, it was absolute chaos, UNICEF (UN Children's Fund) says it. The children and the women were not able to get to the distribution," Ziegler said.

"So not only they violate, but when they violate, they fail to distribute," he added.

SPACE.WIRE